


Waking Up (to ash and dust)

by AngeNoir



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Amnesia, Comic Elements, F/M, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Loss, Memory Loss, Movie elements, Post-Civil War (Marvel), forced memory loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 09:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17547092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: Natasha Stark wakes up.Natasha Stark wakes up, reaching for something that's not there.Natasha Stark waked up, reaching and reaching and never really knowing what she's reaching for.





	Waking Up (to ash and dust)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Goodbye Nat (Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17513120) by [jayjayverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayjayverse/pseuds/jayjayverse). 



Natasha Stark woke up.

Natasha Stark went to the penthouse’s kitchen. She got her mug of coffee, fielded through the mess of emails that Pepper had sent to her, and then she slugged another coffee and made her way out the door.

Natasha Stark skipped the R&D visit this time, went straight to the Pentagon. Waved her way past the desk person, some faceless intern who perpetually seemed to change and who only existed for Ross to exert his feeble control over her life, to bray at her about ‘proper security protocols’ and other shit like that.

Natasha Stark finally got to Ross’s office, sat down on the corner of his desk, legs crossed at the knee, and clucked her tongue at Ross. “This meeting was unnecessary.”

“Just because _you_ flout paperwork and beleaguer your poor liaison with unnecessary _backlog_ does not mean we operate in the same way here, Natasha.”

“Ohhhh, it’s one of _those_ days,” Natasha purred, getting up and sitting down properly across from him, lacing her fingertips together and raising a single eyebrow. “Right, what’s got your underoos in a twist, Everett?”

_I don’t understand why you exist to antagonize every single person you come across._

_I don’t understand why you fail to find the humor in giving the powers that be a sharp shove to remind them they don’t always have everything under their thumb_.

The memory was half-formed, broken, with nothing to support it. Natasha couldn’t tell who she was talking to, who had been talking to her.

Odd, how many of those memories she had.

\- - -

There is a band of light skin on her ring finger. She has never been married.

There is a man’s watch sitting next to her jewelry box. She doesn’t remember whose it is, not sure why it’s there.

There is an armchair in her penthouse she doesn’t use, _knows_ , bone-deep, that she doesn’t use. She doesn’t know why it’s there.

\- - -

“The Rogues attacked again.”

Natasha sighed deeply and rubbed her fingers against her temples. “Where are they this time?”

“Sweden.”

“Who the hell attacks Sweden?” Natasha muttered, pushing away strange memories and focusing on her second in command. “Well, Rhodey, apple of my eye, heart of my hearts, what’s the damage?”

Rhodey, back and legs in a brace of her design ever since the first time they had scrambled after the Rogues and failed, and he had fallen out of the air and crashed in her armor – Rhodey winced. “Well, looks like they uprooted some more Hydra cells.”

“Well, then, why is there damage? Surely Sweden is not going to insist on giving _Hydra_ the benefit of a doubt. After all, they were the first to sign the international agreement against organized terrorism across international boundaries.”

“Just because they signed the Accords and wanted any high-tech or superhumanly-advanced persons checked doesn’t mean that the citizens captured by the Rogues aren’t still Swedish,” Rhodey sighed.

Natasha narrowed her eyes. “Wait. _Captured_?”

“New for us, too – SHIELD has no record of the Rogues ever capturing someone before. We’re not sure why it changed up now.”

Natasha drummed her fingers against the table, looked over at Reed. “Anything else we need to know?”

“Our eye in the sky reports unusual activity, but still no recognizable threat,” Reed reported. “I’ve asked the X-Men to let us know if there’s any unusual extraterrestrial activity, as well.”

“As if they would bestir themselves on our account,” Natasha grumbled, standing up. The Avengers – those left standing – consisted of her, of the kid, and… that was it. When Captain America had first seen the documentation about the Accords – admittedly, not the documentation she had wanted, not the documentation that she had _chosen_ , but what Ross had cherry-picked to showcase the Accords in the worst light possible – he had stood against it. And where he walked, so walked the Witch. And, apparently, Natasha and Clint, two people Natasha had seen as… well, no way to sugarcoat it, she had seen them as friends. _Good_ friends.

Right now, she didn’t know what to do. She knew there would be aliens coming – Loki had made a statement, in New York, and they had made an equally devastating one in return when they had managed to push back the tide, to _destroy_ the army that had come. She had no illusions that they had broken the idea of invading – winning the battle didn’t mean winning the war. The army had come from somewhere, some place, and a place that invested a lot of time in effort in sending an invading force never gave up after the first defeat. Plus it didn’t help that the tesseract, or rather the mind gem, had never been fully recovered from Asgard. And another infinity – stone? Gem? Who the hell knew, since they certainly didn’t _look_ like gems, just like cheap stones – had cropped up on earth, in the care of one Dr. Strange.

_Don’t make fun of people’s name, Tonia, that’s not nice._

_His name is_ literally _strange, I’ll make as much fun of it as I damn well please. Fucking_ hate _magic._

 _I know you do, love_.

Natasha shook her head, stared blankly out the window. “Well,” she said quietly. “Guess I need to find out who they took, and why they were so important.”

\- - -

There was too much space in the penthouse. She kept reaching out for someone who wasn’t there, kept making space for no one. Who would share her vanity? Who would need closet space?

Who would sleep on the pillow beside her?

Whose scent is she remembering – whose scent is on those pillows?

\- - -

“Do you think it’s real?”

Natasha looked away from the data she’d been observing at Reed’s voice. “Hmm?”

“The ‘mind stone.’ Or ‘mind gem.’ Whatever it is. Can it really control people’s thoughts?”

“Controlled Barton, back at the very beginning,” Natasha sighed, turning her gaze back to the readouts. “Controlled a hell of a lot, including Loki, if Thor is to be believed. Then again, the lug has a soft spot the size of a building for that douchebag, so.”

There was more talk behind Natasha, Reed babbling or complaining about something. She didn’t know, and she didn’t really care. The readouts were showing something strange, some weird energy, and she wasn’t sure—

“Where is it now?”

_Don’t. Please. I love you! I love you, didn’t that mean something? It meant something to me! Don’t do this, not this, please!_

_Forget me. Forget who I was to you._

She shook her head, tried very hard to focus on what was happening around her. What was that?

“Stark?”

“What, Reed, what’s going on?” she asked, turning around to look at Reed, pushing away the memory of…

Of what?

There was nothing there. Just wisps, lost to her grasping fingers.

\- - -

Natasha Stark wakes up from a nightmare, scream trapped in her throat.

She reached…

For what? For whom? There was no one there.

Of course there would be no one there.

\- - -

“We have a good lead on the Nomad.”

“Hello to you too, Ross,” Natasha said dryly, glowering at the ceiling as she leaned back in her seat. She should fire her PA.

No, she shouldn’t do that. But definitely needed to tell the girl not to send through Ross’s calls no matter how much he blustered.

“I need you to mobilize to bring him in.”

Natasha knew what he meant. When Captain America went rogue – when he _formed_ the Rogues – he had dropped the American flag costume and donned a weird black costume.

Bruce had followed him. Bruce had been her science bro, her twin from another mother, her bestie after Rhodes. Captain America had looked at what Ross had dumped on the table at their meeting, looked at her, and left. He had made it clear that she had laid down with Ross and that was unacceptable, instead of hearing her side.

_I don’t think you understand what you did, Tonia._

_I did what I had to do! You know, you_ know _I hate Ross, you’ve heard me—_

 _And yet he’s here, at our meeting, shoving this… this_ registration _at us and you think I would say that you did what you had to do?_

_For better or for worse, we said, and you have to trust me that this wasn’t supposed to happen now. Our lawyers were working on it, and I don’t know why he’s showing you such an unfinished draft—_

_So it’s going to get worse?_

_You’re not listening! Why aren’t you listening?!_

“Stark?”

Natasha jerked out of… whatever it was. Clearing her throat, she sighed and murmured, “You’re willing to put me out in the field? What happened to the East Coast needing Iron Queen right now? I couldn’t go to Malibu, but you can send me off to…?”

“Libya.”

“Libya. Really. You want me to go into an area America isn’t welcomed, to chase someone who has shown consistent disregard for damages, in order to – what, bring him in? You think I can? He took the whole team with him, Ross. It’s just me here, and Rhodes, and the Fantastic Four when they can help. That’s not a stellar line-up, Ross.”

“I have my own solution for that – that’s not a problem. We need the Nomad brought in. Without him, the Rogues have no backbone.”

Natasha stared blindly out of the window of her office. “Sure, Ross,” she said tiredly.

What was she fighting for, anyway. She had nothing left to fight for.

Everyone had left.

\- - -

Natasha frowned at the invitation.

‘To Mr. & Mrs. Stark.’

She’d never been married in her life, yet she kept finding holes behind her, around her, beside her.

She didn’t understand why these holes kept popping up.

\- - -

“What’re you doing here, Cap?”

There was an imperceptible twitch, almost, a flinch, that Natasha caught with her HUD.

Then his shoulders straightened, and he turned, that ridiculous mask and black body armor moving smoothly with his body. Would have loved to have been something other than enemies, Natasha mused, hovering above the ground as she surveyed the surroundings.

A computer console, a few downed guards. A com unit – set aside, meaning that there were others hearing what was happening. Probably Natasha – the Black Widow. The other Natasha.

The one he chose, over her.

“Why are you here, Iron Queen?”

“Don’t play like that, Steve. We were teammates, once, before you – stormed off, refused to work with me. Took the team and decided to make your merry way across the world, snubbing the conventions and diplomacy and, really, the very foundation of what made our country great in the beginning, the talking and will of the people and the whole democracy of it.”

As she spoke, she was analyzing the data that was downloading, that Steve had been accessing. He had flinched again, when she had been talking. She didn’t know why.

_We were married for five years – that should mean something!_

_It does, Tonia, it does—_

_I_ love you _!_

_Sometimes, Tonia…_

_Did you stop loving me? Is this what we’ve come to? Can’t you just wait?_

_I’ve never stopped loving you. I… I can’t explain it to you. I can’t. I can’t say why it’s better for you to remember me as a villain than to be torn up over what you need to do. You can’t be focused on me. You have to forget me._

_That’s impossible, you_ know _that’s impossible, and you can’t give me that, you can’t ask me to just accept you’re making the best decision without explaining—_

_Like you’re doing? Like you’re asking of me, Tonia?_

_That’s… that’s not fair. I love you._

_You need to move on, and do what you need to do. I need to do what I need to do._

_I’m not going to… why do you have a mind gem?_

“You don’t get to call me Steve.”

“Why, because you painted on black spandex and draped a ridiculous cape on your shoulders? I know who you are.”

“You don’t, not really,” Steve said.

Natasha looked across the room at him, moved her attention from the data, because in her bones she knew that was wrong. She didn’t know why, she didn’t know how, but she knew… she _knew_ that Steve was stalling, from his body language and his tone, the way he was watching her. He wanted that data… and she didn’t see why she should stop him. So far the Rogues had been going after Hydra, and looking at the analyses she’d been doing, he was searching for something. Something with a similar energy output to the mind gem they’d found in the tesseract. She’d already hooked her VI into the network, slipped in to place a line of code that would broadcast a very specific signal once the flash pen was plugged in again, and copying as much of the information that she could.

“I do, that’s the thing. That’s the funny thing. I feel like I really do know you, and we’ve been on the same – or, I should say, we _had_ been on the same team for almost seven years. I know when you’re going to dodge left or throw right. I know you have Widow on the other end of that com, that you have Falcon doing surveillance. I know you’re going to take this back for you and Widow to analyze, to have Hawkeye run strategies against. I know you’re going to head out to the next place on your list – whatever list that is – within the next week.”

He stared at her.

“I _know you_. The only thing I can’t understand is why you aren’t _talking_ to me.”

The computer console beeped, and in a flash of motion, Steve darted down, grabbed the pen, and _threw the computer at her_.

Not going to lie, that really surprised her. Normally, he would have thrown the shield, but since the shield wasn’t here, she guessed he had to improvise. Still, she caught the computer – could use it, perhaps – set it down, and blasted off after him.

She lost him. She didn’t know if she did it on purpose, or not.

She wasn’t sure of anything, anymore.

\- - -

“Ms. Stark, Ms. Stark! What can you tell us about the Rogues? What happened between you and Steve Rogers?”

_Is that a mind gem? Why do you have a mind gem?_

Whispers, in the back of her mind, with no substance, nothing to hold. Holes, in her life, that nothing was filling. Sad looks, pitying looks, with no explanations.

No explanations

Something missing.

She smiled for the cameras, slid into the waiting car.

“Where to, boss?” Happy asked.

_The scenic drive, Happy, it’s my honeymoon!_

“Home,” she said, and wondered how home had become so empty.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [forget me [art/fic remix]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17571536) by [Takame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takame/pseuds/Takame)




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